


Passion and Justice

by katling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author is salty, Civil War Team Iron Man, Comments moderated due to trolls, Gen, Iron Family for the win!, Not A Fix-It, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Steve Friendly, Not Wanda Friendly, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony is Pissed off, and not inclined to put up with anyone's crap anymore, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-10-04 00:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged. ~Samuel JohnsonIn the aftermath of the Civil War, Tony is angry. And as the Ten Rings found out, you don't want Tony angry with you. The Hulk might be more obvious in terms of anger but Tony is far more creative.Note: This fic is currently marked as Gen but that's just because I haven't decided what my pairing is going to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I... have no idea where this is going. The first paragraph came to me when I was on the tram and I decided to run with it. I was going to keep it back until I had more details but I'm hot and tired and everything is just this low-level sort of crap at the moment so here you go. Have an angry Tony. :D
> 
> Oh, and with the recent influx of Team Cap trolls and Wanda stans, comments for this fic are being moderated.

It took Tony almost six hours to work his way through all the stages of grief. That might sound fast to the average person but between the lack of anything else to do while lying in a dead suit in a frozen bunker in Siberia and Tony’s admittedly remarkable brain, six hours was pretty good. He spent most of his time in denial and anger before zipping his way past bargaining and wallowing in depression for a while. When he finally reached acceptance, he nodded at it and decided that it was time to go back to anger. 

Apart from the fact that anger kept him warm, it also seemed the most sensible reaction to the shit show of the last few days. It also gave him the momentum to force the right arm of his dead suit over just far enough that he was able to hit one of the suit’s hidden full manual release switches. He had two sorts of manual release switches in the suit. The more obvious and easier to reach ones were for individual sections of the armour but there were three well-hidden manual release switches that would cause the entire armour to fall apart into sections. 

He could have reached a couple of the individual switches at any time but they wouldn’t help since the only ones he could reach from here would release the chest and pelvis sections and they weren’t designed for that sort of release when he was lying down… at least not without having someone there to remove them from his body before the weight got too much. The full release would actually jettison the chest and pelvis pieces. Not far or with any great force but just enough to get them clear of his body. He’d always figured if he ever needed to use them, he might well be in poor shape.

As turned out to be the case. 

His efforts were rewarded when he finally reached the switch and punched it. The armour did nothing for just long enough to make Tony worry then, with a screeched of tortured, twisted metal, the chest piece was punched away by the hydraulics, quickly followed by the pelvic piece. He immediately felt better even with the resultant rush of freezing air over his body making him shiver and his breathing eased a little. The rest of the armour then fell away and he slowly and very gingerly sat up in the remains of the suit.

He poked gently at his chest and winced as the pain spiked with every light touch. That… did not feel good and given he was struggling to draw in a full breath, he knew that the internal injuries were probably not something he wanted to think about too much right now either. He reached over to the helmet and dragged it to him. A few moments of prying released the comm unit from inside the helmet then he crawled over to the chest piece and with a groan, turned it over and opened one of the storage caches where he stored some of his spare batteries. A few minutes later, he had a functioning comm unit which he immediately put on.

“FRI?”

“Boss!” FRIDAY said with open relief. “Are you alright?”

“Not really, baby girl,” Tony replied. “I need you to send a medevac for me. Contact the Russian authorities for permission. I spoke with them on the way in so they know I’m here.”

“Yes, boss.”

There were a few moments of silence which Tony used to haul himself over to the wall and slump down against it. His anger was simmering under the surface, just where he liked it. He’d never been the type to be consumed with anger or to rage and scream. Even his recent outburst was more a result of overwhelming feelings of grief and betrayal than anger. His anger, at its best, simmered under the surface and inspired him, as the Ten Rings had found out to their misfortune. And now, Rogers and his merry band of morons were going to find out as well. As soon as he got the hell out of here anyway.

“Boss? I have the Russian Ministers of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs and Emergency Situations on the line. They wish to speak to you.”

Tony grimaced. “Yeah, okay, put them on.”

“Dr Stark. This is the Minister for Defence. Your medevac has been approved for entry into the Russian Federation. However, we need to know the situation in the bunker. Have the Winter Soldiers been released?”

Tony drew in a breath and knew he had to make a decision right now about what he was going to do. The anger lying under his skin made that easy. He’d spent years protecting the Avengers from their own idiocy and mistakes. All he’d gotten for that was derision and abuse and lies. No more. Tony had always allowed enormous amounts of latitude for those he considered friends or family but the Avengers had proven they were neither. So, now they would be treated in the same way he treated those who were _not_ his friends.

“No,” he said firmly then coughed slightly as that made his chest ache. “The Winter Soldiers were dead before we arrived. Zemo had shot them all.”

“Then the medevac?”

“For me,” Tony replied. “This was a trap specifically directed at… well, at me, I suppose. Helmut Zemo had a tape of my parents being murdered by the Winter Soldier. Something I obviously didn’t know and something Rogers _did_ know. Needless to say, I didn’t react well to his lies or to finding myself standing just a few feet away from my parents’ murderer. We fought. Since _I_ wasn’t trying to kill anyone, I came off decidedly second best.”

The silence from the other end of the line was weighty. Tony was being quite strategic in telling these men this news in the way he had and he knew these crafty old men wouldn’t have missed his subtle emphasis in that last sentence. What he had just said would not be kept secret but he didn’t want it to be. His last sentence had been a tactical nuke of the highest order. He knew the men listening to him, as well as their aides and secretaries and whoever else was in the room, would hear that sentence in a slightly different way – “Since _I_ wasn’t trying to kill anyone, _unlike them_ , I came off decidedly second best.” It wouldn’t take long before the news spread from Russia – Captain America and the Winter Soldier tried to kill Tony Stark after finding out that the Winter Soldier murdered Howard and Maria Stark. Questions would be asked – was the Winter Soldier trying to finish the job? And has Captain America betrayed his roots and joined HYDRA?

After his six-hour foray through the various stages of grief, Tony knew that he would ultimately be able to grant some mercy to Barnes but not right now. Had Barnes not gotten himself involved, maybe it would be easier but he had and worse, he’d tried to pull out the arc reactor. Tony knew that little stunt was going to give him nightmares about Obie for days, even weeks, and thus his mercy was limited right now. But later… well, later he’d be able to rehabilitate Barnes’ image, if he felt so inclined. As for Rogers… there would be no mercy for him.

“How may the Russian government assist you, Dr Stark?” the Minister said firmly.

“There was someone else here,” Tony said. “I heard a jet take off but I know it wasn’t the quinjet Rogers and Barnes stole because FRIDAY had already sent it off back home. I suspect whoever was here has taken Zemo, Rogers and Barnes with them.”

It was perhaps a bit mean of him to drop T’Challa – and he was almost positive it _was_ T’Challa because he knew his own tech and if it had been anyone else following him, he was confident he would have picked them up – into the deep end but his chest was aching in a way he knew was not good at all so he was lacking mercy for the Wakandan king as well. Especially since the man had not checked up on him. Whether it was just a case of T’Challa not caring or taking Roger’s word as gospel, well, he deserved what he got when Tony’s little nudge bore fruit.

“There was no other request to enter our sovereign territory,” came a second Russian voice. “Just yours.”

“Yeah, I have a suspicion as to who it might be,” Tony replied, feeling weary. “Look to see who drops Zemo off with the authorities.”

“We will,” the second voice said grimly.

“As for anything else,” Tony continued. “This bunker should be secured and the Winter Soldiers should be disposed of.”

“It will be done,” the first Minister said. “Copies of anything we find will be forwarded to the Accords Council.”

“Good plan,” Tony replied. He paused. “And not to be rude and all since you were so nice as to let me in… but you are aware the Council would look very dimly on more HYDRA based super soldiers coming forward in the future?”

There was a pregnant silence from the other end of the line. “We’ll keep that in mind,” the Minister said with amusement.

“You do that,” Tony said then he heard the sound of a jet landing outside. “I think my ride is here.”

“Then we will let them care of you,” the Minister said then the line went dead.

A few minutes later, the Stark Industries medical team came rushing in. As the medics started working on him, Tony directed the security guards to pick up the shield, the arm and the various bits of the armour. He waved away the stretcher and gestured for the medics to help him up.

“I know you want me lying down and that really does sound like an awesome idea,” he said. “But first I need to do something.”

The medics conceded and helped him over to the control panel. Tony immediately ejected the video tape and handed it to the nearest security guard then he typed a few commands into the computer. Zemo had arranged for an internet connection for whatever reason – or perhaps this was HYDRA’s work and, if so, he shuddered to think how ‘abandoned’ this bunker actually was – and it was a matter of a few minutes to open up a hole in the rather inadequate security firewalls to allow FRIDAY in.

“FRI, get in there and download the whole lot,” he said as he stepped back and allowed the medics to help him over to the stretcher. “Put it on a secure server and run every anti-virus and anti-malware program you can find over it, both our internal ones as well as anything commercial you think looks good.”

“On it, boss.”

With that, Tony let the anger simmering under his skin settle in and he lay back on the stretcher and closed his eyes. “Take me home.”

“Yes, sir,” said one of the medics and Tony let himself drift away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's catching up with everything that's happened and then he gets into a planning session with Rhodey.
> 
> This is another set up chapter to give you an idea of where Tony is now and what's he's got in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments! I'm glad you're all enjoying this fic.
> 
> I'm a bit mean to Wakanda in this chapter and the next one but if we're going for consequences then T'Challa has to face his as well. But Tony won't be too mean to them. He likes science and Wakanda is a kind of science wonderland. Besides, in his eyes, T'Challa is just a sideline. At best, he's a fool who believed Captain America, which he can't blame him too much for since he was the same, and at worst, he's a Rogers 2.0 in which case, his true colours will show soon enough and if he's that bad, Tony will take him down with the others.

Tony sat in his hospital bed and read the latest news on the tablet he’d finally been permitted yesterday. His arrival at the Stark Industries medical facility in Switzerland wasn’t something he remembered but he’d been told by FRIDAY that it was quite dramatic. His breathing had deteriorated further by that stage and his heart had been doing things that had made the doctors and nurses run around with wide eyes and slightly panicked looks on their faces. Add in the physical damage to his chest and the entire facility had been in an uproar. Specialist surgeons had been flown in when it became obvious that the damage was worse than first thought and, in the end, Pepper had sent for Drs Cho and Wu and had sent over the case that Tony had left aside for any worst-case scenario situations with his health. His overall vitals had apparently hit the point where it had been called for. Tony’s instructions had been very specific and he knew Pepper would have followed them to the letter.

It wasn’t ideal. The arc reactor brought with it a myriad of issues that he quietly hated but he’d compensated for that with a diluted version of Extremis that was controlled and bound by nanotech. He hadn’t actually been interested in anything like super strength or fire breathing or such but between the version of Extremis he’d engineered and the nanotech, he had an accelerated healing ability and a lot of tech-related things going on. It was more his style than anything remotely resembling the things a super soldier could do. If he wanted to punch someone or lift heavy weights, well… that was what the suit was for. And the accelerated healing would mitigate most of the worst issues with having the arc reactor back in his chest.

All in all, he’d been unconscious for a little over two weeks. Which was also less than ideal but as he was finding out, things had gone along rather nicely in his absence.

The Russians had indeed kept a careful eye on matters in Europe and when King T’Challa had dropped off Zemo in The Hague, they’d watched quietly but said nothing at the time. Tony was surprised. He’d anticipated that they’d raise an immediate diplomatic stink about T’Challa’s breach of their borders but they’d ended up doing something he’d _hoped_ for but hadn’t thought they’d have the patience for. They were playing the long game. They weren’t being _obviously_ disruptive towards Wakanda but from Tony’s digging, the Russians were behind the current whispering campaign that was undermining T’Challa’s efforts to bring his country into the wider world in a position of strength. 

It was kind of amusing really. They were approaching it on multiple fronts. First, they were pointing out TChalla’s inexperience as a leader and how that had resulted in his… _unfortunate_ response to the death of his father. That had gotten Romania’s attention and now that country was being very difficult about the damage done in part by T’Challa. The King’s sister, Shuri, had stepped forward as an alternative face for Wakanda once T’Challa was bogged down in discussions with Romania. At that point, Russia had quietly pointed out that as she was sixteen, her word and signature were not legally binding and besides… if she was such a scientific genius, where were her peer-reviewed papers where everyone could see and read them? Various Eastern European scientists, most likely prompted by the Russians, had pointed out that, by contrast, Tony Stark had published his first collaborative paper at the age of ten and his first solo paper at fourteen.

Once Wakanda was caught up in all of that, Russia had then orchestrated a series of questions about the whereabouts of Rogers and Barnes after their illegal actions in Romania and Germany, adding in the rest of the newly-termed ‘Team Cap’ after the breakout from the Raft. Everybody was looking at each other and slowly but surely ticking off all the places where they _weren’t_ and thus getting closer to where they _were_. _Tony_ knew where they were. The idiots still had his gear and he’d traced it the moment he’d been allowed to get his hands on the tablet. He wasn’t sure whether _Russia_ knew where they were but he suspected they’d made a damn good guess based on what Tony had told them and who dropped off Zemo. As far as he could tell, they were lying in wait for the roll call of nations _not_ hiding Rogers and his merry morons to get to the point where they could start making more quietly innocent observations.

Tony was actually very impressed and he’d found himself chuckling at various points as he caught up with all of this. He might have to actually consider doing something nice for the Russians after this. Their efforts were masterful and had gone a long way to turning the world against Rogers and his sycophants. 

He was distracted from his catching up when the door to his room opened and Rhodey wheeled his way in. Tony’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t feel the wave of guilt he’d been expecting. His anger had obviously washed it away in Siberia. This, what had happened to Rhodey, wasn’t his fault. If Tony was going to place the blame anywhere, it was going to be with Rogers. He was the one who decided that punching his way out was more important than _talking_.

“Sugarplum,” he said with a faint smile. “That thing has got to go.”

“Tones,” Rhodey began with patient determination. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” Tony said with snorted a little when he saw his friend’s surprise. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Rogers for forcing the fight. But that thing still has to go.”

Rhodey gave him a long, intense look then nodded slowly. “Well, I won’t say no.” He paused. “Tony…”

“They’re going to pay for this,” Tony said grimly. “For Bucharest, for Leipzig and for Siberia.” He paused. “And for Lagos.”

“What happened?” Rhodey said, wheeling himself up to the bed. He was frowning but it wasn’t an expression that worried Tony. He knew that frown. It was a frown that said Rhodey was confused because Tony hadn’t reacted the way he’d thought he was going to but he wasn’t displeased about being wrong.

Tony drew in a deep breath then in as succinct a way as he could, he told Rhodey what had happened. As he did, he watched as Rhodey went from worried and appalled to incandescent with rage.

“He did fucking _what_?” Rhodey finally burst out with when Tony finished.

“I’m not sure which bit you’re referring to, platypus,” Tony said. “But I think the answer is yes, he did that, no matter which part it is.”

“So what are we going to do?” Rhodey demanded.

“We?”

Rhodey snorted. “If you think I’m not going to be right beside you on this then you’ve clearly forgotten what I said after I pulled you out of that dumpster when you were fifteen.”

Tony blushed and ducked his head. “Thanks, Rhodey bear.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Well, the Russians have done part of it for me,” Tony said wryly. “Their whispering campaign has been a work of art.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “You knew about this? It took Pepper a few days to trace everything back to Russia but she didn’t want to interfere until she’d spoken to you.”

“I tipped them off to T’Challa,” Tony replied. “I suspected he was there but he never came in so I couldn’t be sure. I told them to keep an eye out for whoever dropped off Zemo.” He paused. “I may also have told them just enough to start all those rumours about Rogers trying to kill me.”

“I wondered where they got that,” Rhodey replied. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not. I didn’t think…”

“That Cap could be such a jerk?” Tony snorted. “You and me both.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Though… I guess we really shouldn’t be that surprised.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why?”

“Most of Cap’s sterling reputation is pure propaganda,” Tony replied. He gave Rhodey a significant look. “Remember, I spent years as a kid getting all the _real_ stories from Dad. Again and again and again. What’s more before Dad and Aunt Peggy had their falling out, I got stories from her as well. And she had some different stuff from Dad. Things she could _only_ have gotten from Rogers himself and maybe the Howlies as well. I just never really cared about them all that much because…” He grimaced and waved a hand. “Well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said. “So what’s with these stories?”

“Right,” Tony said. “On their own, they’re just little collections of ‘aw shucks, ain’t Cap a card’ sorts of things but when you add them all together, they paint a different picture.”

“Paint it for me,” Rhodey said, settling himself more comfortably in his wheelchair.

“Right, so pre-serum,” Tony began. “This came from Aunt Peggy, who I think got it from some of the Howlies who got it from Barnes. Little shrimp Steve gets rejected five times when trying to sign up.”

“Everyone knows that,” Rhodey said dryly. “That’s part of the legend.”

“Exactly,” Tony said. “But they don’t know this. Good ol’ Cap’s darling mother died of tuberculosis. At home. Where little sickly shrimp Steve lived.”

Rhodey’s eyes widened. “And he didn’t get it as well?”

“Well, he didn’t get _active_ TB,” Tony said, pointing a finger at Rhodey. “Nobody tested him to see if he was a carrier of inactive TB.”

Rhodey was still looking disturbed. “And what about now? Has he ever been tested for it? If he had inactive TB, did the serum kill it or was it enhanced as well?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” Tony said. “For which we don’t have an answer. We do have some blood samples from after the Lagos mission and so I have sent them for testing with Dr Cho because I trust her not to do anything evil.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rhodey said, shaking his head. “I sincerely hope those come back negative.”

“You and me both.” Tony snorted. “But wait, there’s more. This was another of Aunt Peggy’s stories, phrased to make it sound like everyone _but_ Rogers was being unreasonable. Apparently Barnes suggested to Rogers that there were plenty of things he could do other than fight.”

“That’s true,” Rhodey said. “Important jobs too.”

Tony nodded. “Rogers didn’t see it that way. He was – reading between the lines of what Aunt Peggy said – either dismissive of such work or contemptuous about it.”

Rhodey paused for a moment. “Dick.”

“It gets better,” Tony said with a smirk. “This one _must_ have come from Barnes by way of the Howlies. No one else would have known. Well, unless someone spoke to the other people involved, which I suppose is possible. After the Valkyrie went down, the SSR or the Army or even SHIELD later on might have gone looking for anyone who knew Rogers to make sure they didn’t open their mouths and sully the reputation of Captain America.”

“And it could be sullied, I assume,” Rhodey said.

“Yep.” Tony shifted slightly. “Apparently Rogers’ dislike of dissenting opinions goes a long way back. According to this story, he was in a cinema to watch a movie and there was a war propaganda piece played first. Some guy in the audience started heckling, telling them to get on with the movie.”

“Conscientious objector or someone affected by the war in some way?” Rhodey asked.

Tony shrugged. “Who knows? According to Aunt Peggy’s story, the guy didn’t say anything to suggest he was a Nazi sympathiser or anything like that so… either one of your options or he was just an ordinary, garden variety dick. Either way, little sickly Steve takes offence and then you get that story that is in the legend about him _standing up to bullies_ by fighting them in alleyways.”

“But the guy wasn’t being a bully,” Rhodey said flatly. “You could say he was tactless or being a dick but he definitely wasn’t being a bully.”

Tony pointed a finger at him. “Exactly.”

“So Rogers has always been a judgemental, sanctimonious jackass.”

“Pretty much.”

“Unfortunately, these are stories told by two people who are now dead so we can’t really use them,” Rhodey said regretfully.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tony replied, a little smirk playing around his lips.

Rhodey gave him a long look. “Alright. Spill. What have you done?”

“Well,” Tony said, drawing out the word as his smirk turned into a grin. “As it turns out, there are some people left who were alive back then. They’re very old and most of them are in much the same position as Aunt Peggy but FRIDAY found a couple who are still pretty mentally sharp. I was thinking about sending a journalist or two their way.”

Rhodey gaped at him for a moment then he started to laugh. “You’re going to let them loose.”

“Yep,” Tony replied, looking smug. “And I’ve got all sorts of information on the others too.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “So that’s your plan? Drag their reputations?”

“Hardly, sugarplum,” Tony said with a snort. “That’s just the first act to make sure they’re on edge and to undermine their reputations to make sure that people will think twice about helping them. Once that’s done, we flush them out.”

“From Wakanda?” Rhodey said and when Tony blinked, he was the one who snorted. “It’s a pretty fair guess given that T’Challa dropped Zemo off at The Hague. He was obviously there and since FRIDAY told me the quinjet Rogers and Barnes stole was back at the Compound, well…” He shrugged. “They don’t let you become a Colonel if you can’t think these sorts of things through.”

Tony grinned at that last comment then looked intrigued. “How many other people do you think have figured it out?”

“I think quite a few people have put two and two together in a tentative fashion at the very least,” Rhodey replied, sounding dryly amused. “I’ve had some… interesting non-questions directed at me on the subject. Diplomats are very good at talking around subjects that they can’t really talk directly about.”

“What’s the general mood?”

“Stiff disapproval,” Rhodey replied. “They remind me of my first CO.”

Tony snorted and flashed him a quick grin. “So, if it were to come out, they’d be… unwilling to give Wakanda the benefit of the doubt.”

“I’d say that’s about right,” Rhodey said with a nod.

“Good.” Tony wriggled his shoulders and settled back against the pillows more comfortably. “Any ideas who would be the best to give T’Challa an oblique warning about the possible consequences if it were to be discovered that our erstwhile former teammates were found to be in his country… all the while assuring him that _of course_ we don’t think he’d be foolish enough to do something like harbouring terrorists?”

Rhodey frowned thoughtfully and tapped a finger on the armrest of his wheelchair. “Yeah, I think so. There’s a couple who could probably be steered in the right direction and maybe one who would be willing to do it if we asked nicely.”

“Can you handle that?”

Rhodey smiled. “You bet. So, you’re presuming T’Challa will kick them out?”

“That or they’ll leave of their own accord because he won’t risk his country for them and he’ll tighten up whatever restrictions he has on them until they rebel against them,” Tony said. “Either way, they won’t be protected anymore.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Rhodey asked. “It could result in another Lagos. Or worse, Bucharest.”

“It won’t,” Tony said with a confidence that made Rhodey sit up and his gaze sharpen. 

“How?”

Tony grimaced. “Yeah… okay… how much did Pepper tell you about my Eleventh Hour Protocol?”

“Arc reactor, extremis, nanotech,” Rhodey said. “I got the Reader’s Digest version.”

“Well, long story short,” Tony paused and a moment later, the lights in the room flickered and the ECG machine near the bed came on and pinged.

Rhodey looked around and both eyebrows went up. “That’s… you.”

“Yeah.” Tony looked at the ECG machine and there was a sort of determined melancholy about him for a moment before it disappeared and his expression settled into one of wry amusement. “I guess you could say I’m a technopath. I could have gone the super soldier route but you know me… punching things isn’t my style.”

“Tony,” Rhodey said with a sort of weary amusement that was very familiar. He’d been using that tone for Tony’s shenanigans since they’d been at college.

Tony grinned then he sobered. “I never really wanted to be enhanced,” he said thoughtfully.

“I know,” Rhodey said. “But?”

“Eleventh Hour,” Tony said with a shrug. “I wasn’t ready to die. Got too many things to do and too many people to smack down to die right now.”

“But you’re okay?” Rhodey asked, meeting Tony’s eyes.

Tony saw the wealth of questions that Rhodey was deliberately not asking and just for a moment he let his anger show. He knew Rhodey would understand. He then let the anger settle back under his skin and smiled softly. “Yeah, honey bear. I’m good.”

Rhodey nodded slowly and with understanding. “Okay then. Tell me more about this plan of yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features my headcanon that Steve's peccadilloes are known among a small group of people because Bucky enjoyed keeping Steve in line by telling the Howling Commandos about all the stupid things Steve did when he was a skinny shrimp, albeit shaded so that they didn't make Steve look too bad. Those stories then got relayed by the Howlies to Peggy and Howard after the war and from there to Tony, who got bored of them about the same time he started railing against the constant comparisons to Steve Rogers. That was when he started picking holes in them and reading between the lines to the less complimentary interpretations. Tony isn't sure how much of the stories to actually believe since he met the Howlies a few times as a kid and he figured out pretty quickly that they weren't ones to let a good story remain unembellished but they're useful to him now so he's running with them.
> 
> Also, how was it that there were no counter-stories to the legend of Captain America? I can't imagine that some of those people Steve picked fights with weren't cynical as all hell once they realised that the Steve Rogers who was enhanced to become Captain America was the same Steve Rogers they'd tangled with in Brooklyn. Sure, Cap was painted as a hero but there's _always_ someone willing to puncture the balloon. That's not a new phenomenon. It's an interesting question.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T'Challa's been having a very bad, no good, screwed up kind of month... and it's not getting any better.

T’Challa was not having a good day. In fact, he hadn’t had a good week either and the previous month had been less than stellar as well. It wasn’t even about the death of his father except that was the precipitating factor in everything that had happened afterwards. He sometimes – well, often really – wished that his father hadn’t died. Maybe if T’Chaka had survived much of what had happened… well, wouldn’t have. And T’Challa couldn’t help but think that his father would be very unimpressed with some of the decisions he’d made.

In fact, he was beginning to wonder whether he was really ready to be king. He suspected the answer was no. He might be able to sell the image to Wakanda and the rest of the world but inside, he was feeling more and more like he was drowning. The worst part of it all was that he wasn’t sure if this was perfectly normal for a king or whether he really, truly hadn’t been at all ready to take the throne. The worst part was… there wasn’t really anyone he could ask about it. Absolute monarchies really weren’t very widespread these days and of those countries that _were_ absolute monarchies, none of them were even remotely in the same position as Wakanda and… quite frankly, most of them weren’t the sort of places he wanted advice from.

He sighed and pushed away those unproductive thoughts and turned his attention to the papers on his desk. Since he’d been confirmed as Wakanda’s king – and the less said about that near disaster, the better, though he still felt somewhat guilty about Erik’s… _N’Jadaka’s_ fate – the paperwork had actually increased. Apparently there were many things that had been held in abeyance until he was properly king, that couldn’t have been decided or signed off on by him before then. Now it was _all_ on his desk and he felt like he didn’t have a moment of the day for himself.

Worse, things were not going smoothly with Wakanda’s emergence into the wider world, which was giving certain factions within Wakanda who had not approved of the move more fuel for their particular fires. He’d thought they would have been able to step out with strength. They had too much to offer the world to be sidelined or dismissed. But it hadn’t worked out that way.

First had come the whispers and comments about his actions in Bucharest and at the Leipzig/Halle airport after his father’s death. That had resulted in a diplomatic and politely censorious letter of intent from Romania about his actions during the debacle in Bucharest. Somehow, the letter had leaked to the newspapers so T’Challa hadn’t been able to deal with the matter quietly and move on. The press kept asking questions and the Romanian government were giving answers and that meant the spotlight had been very firmly turned onto T’Challa and there had been comments made, both diplomatic ones and rude ones, about his inexperience, his recklessness, his rashness and his lack of concern for international laws and conventions and whether any of that made him fit to act as a world leader.

When he’d gotten bogged down in negotiations with Romania and dealing with the aspersions on his character, Shuri had offered to step up and take the lead in the negotiations with the UN. She’d returned within 48 hours, furious, embarrassed and practically in tears. He’d been shocked to see his self-possessed sister so upset and when she told him why, he’d been set back on his heels. She was sixteen and had been told in no uncertain, though very polite, terms, that she could not speak for Wakanda or be involved in any negotiations of any sort because she was considered underage in the wider world. Put simply, her word and her signature were not considered legally binding. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the case in Wakanda, if they were going to do business with the world, they had to abide by the laws of the world.

Later on, Okoye had come to him and told him the _other_ reason Shuri was so upset. As Wakanda’s Head of Scientific Research, she’d been due to meet with some of the world’s best scientists while she was away but it hadn’t gone well. While the scientists had delighted in her brilliance and had enjoyed ‘sciencing’ with her, it had all fallen apart a bit when they’d asked for copies of her research papers so that they could read them in their own time. Shuri hadn’t been able to produce anything. She was the Head of Research but… they didn’t really publish in Wakanda in the same way that the rest of the world’s scientists did. That was something that had made it very easy for Wakanda to absorb where the rest of the world was in their development but publishing formally written papers wasn’t done all that much here. Ideas were disseminated through discussion groups and forums, both specialised and open access. Since they didn’t publish to the world’s scientific journals, they didn’t write the formal papers and thus Shuri had nothing to give the scientists without handing over large swathes of her and Wakanda’s research. 

Apparently, things had not gone well at that point. The scientists had noticed that she seemed very familiar with their work and had started questioning her about Wakanda’s research and when Wakanda scientists intended to start publishing peer-reviewed papers to the world’s journals. Shuri hadn’t been able to answer that question since… well, since they hadn’t talked about it and most of the scientists, including Shuri, hadn’t seen much reason to do so. She hadn’t been able to prevaricate quickly enough or adeptly enough and the scientists had gotten angry, asking pointed questions about just how much of the world’s scientific breakthroughs Wakanda had ‘stolen’. That was when Okoye had found a reason to take Shuri out of there and bring her home before a problem could turn into yet another disaster.

T’Challa sighed and leaned back in his chair. He could see both sides of the problem there. The Wakandan scientists had not planned on publishing because they didn’t see much point when most of the things they could publish were either far in advance of anything the rest of the world could produce or were deeply tied into the use of vibranium, which they had no intention of selling to the world. That was something that not even T’Challa could change, even if he wanted to. Vibranium was their most valuable natural resource and it was a finite one. Any decision to sell it to the world would have to go before all the tribes and he knew what their answer would be.

Yet, the scientists did have a point. From the outside, it did very much look like Wakanda was… stealing. That they were taking everything the world could give them and giving back nothing in return. There had even been rumours surfacing in the last few days suggesting that Wakandan spies had been actively sabotaging the world’s technological breakthroughs to order to maintain their own superiority. The failure of Howard Stark’s car in the Forties had been one suggestion. The Challenger disaster had been another. Even the kidnapping of Tony Stark had been mentioned. T’Challa had scoffed at the rumours when asked about them publically but he’d asked Ayo to investigate anyway. She’d given him a look that said she thought he was being paranoid but T’Challa had seen the look in her eyes anyway. She might think him paranoid but she couldn’t dismiss the accusations out of hand any more than he could. He didn’t think his country would have been so dishonourable as to do such a thing as sabotage but… without evidence proving that, he couldn’t say it hadn’t either. Not every king of Wakanda had been a good man.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the ringing of his phone and he hesitated a moment before answering it. It seemed like every phone call he received brought with it more bad news. He sighed then and picked it up anyway.

“T’Challa,” he said calmly.

“Your Majesty, there is a call for you from a Dr Janice Mackenzie, New Zealand’s Ambassador to the UN.”

T’Challa sighed and scrubbed his face with one hand. “Put her through.”

There was a moment of silence then there was a calm yet cheerful voice speaking. “Ah, Your Majesty, thank you for taking my call. I know you must be busy.”

“Not at all, Dr Mackenzie,” T’Challa said politely. Dr Mackenzie was known to be garrulous and he really didn’t have time to spend hours on the phone with her. However, he also wasn’t in a position to blow her off. New Zealand might be a relative minnow on the world stage but, like Australia, they had a reputation for getting things done and their relative neutrality also meant they could be heard when others might not be. He wanted and needed her on his side. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Something’s come in a few discussion,” the Ambassador said blithely and T’Challa tensed. He knew enough of the way the UN operated now to know this was not going to be good. He listened intently as Dr Mackenzie continued, “Nothing formal or official but some questions are being asked and I thought it best to clear things up. It’s all ludicrous, of course.”

“What is, Dr Mackenzie?” T’Challa asked.

“Well, you know most of the world is gradually joining in the game of ‘Not I’ when it come to the Rogues,” Dr Mackenzie said breezily, making T’Challa’s heart lurch. Could the UN know about his unwanted ‘guests’? “There have been some people in the UN pointing fingers at Wakanda. It’s all utterly scurrilous, of course. No one really suspects you. Why would you risk your country’s re-emergence into the world for a bunch of terrorists? It’s ludicrous. It’s actually given us a few new directions to look into. You know the old thing – those who make the most noise usually have something to hide.”

“Ah, yes,” T’Challa said. “So… what can I…?”

“Ah yes!” The Ambassador chuckled. “Sorry. I’m always going off on tangents. Anyway, we’re exploring the idea that the Rogues may have sought sanctuary somewhere on the African continent. Under the working theory that those pointing fingers at you might be trying to protect allies in the region. It’s not a strong lead since the Rogues would mostly stick out like a sore thumb everywhere there except in areas of South Africa. But we were hoping you might be able to make some enquiries on behalf of the Accords Council. Many on the Council have a… well, let’s say… _unfortunate_ history in Africa and such a loaded query might come better from one of their own, so to speak.”

“Of course, Dr Mackenzie,” T’Challa said over the pounding of his heart. “I would be honoured to assist the Council.”

“Excellent!” Dr Mackenzie said. “I’ll my best to squash these rumours here at the UN. Can’t have your country’s emergence put in jeopardy and I know you’ve had some… difficulties recently.”

“Yes, we have,” he said dryly. “My sister…” He let that trail off.

At the other end of the phone line, Dr Mackenzie audibly sighed. “I know. That was unfortunate. Scientists aren’t exactly known for their diplomatic skills. Perhaps your sister could try speaking to Tony Stark? He did that whole child genius thing himself so I daresay he knows all the pitfalls.” She paused. “Though he’s been somewhat absent since that whole civil war debacle. Injured, quite seriously from what we’ve been told. Something to do with Siberia and Captain America trying to kill him and leaving him for dead.”

T’Challa went very still. He had heard those rumours himself and read the press release Stark Industries had put out and hadn’t known what to make of any of it. Rogers had assured him that Stark was alright and was letting them go willingly so he hadn’t bothered to check. He’d then assumed the rumours were just that – rumours with no basis in fact. But from what Dr Mackenzie had said, she knew the truth. The Council had been told. Perhaps he could take advantage of her garrulous nature to find out more information.

“Yes, we’d heard those rumours even here,” he said, once more trailing off and letting her fill the gap.

“Less rumours and more truth,” she said, just as he’d hoped. “The Council was briefed by Colonel Rhodes, of course. Good of him to do so given his own recent injury. Looks that’s going to be permanent. Damn shame. He’s a good soldier. Anyway, yes, Dr Stark is currently recovering but they expect him to be back on his feet shortly. He sent a short message assuring us he still supports the Accords and is still willing to work with them and on them.” She chuckled. “Concluded it with a polite but blunt message that we’re not to assume we can do whatever we like with them in the wake of all that mess.”

“That is good to hear,” T’Challa said. “I too still support the Accords, despite… or perhaps because… of my own errors.”

“We all make mistakes, Your Majesty,” Dr Mackenzie said sympathetically. “A wise man owns up or so my father always said.”

“My father said something similar,” T’Challa said. “Let us hope I will always manage to be a wise man.”

The conversation continued with the Ambassador for another half an hour before he was able to get her off the phone then he slumped back in his chair and scrubbed his face with both hands. He’d known it was a mistake to let Rogers and his friends stay when he owed no allegiance nor anything else to them. Now it was coming back to bite him hard. He stared at the paperwork on his desk then shoved himself to his feet. Rogers and his friends had largely had free run of the previously unused east wing of the palace. Well, no more. They would have to be moved to a more discreet location, perhaps on the border so they could be hustled out of the country if need be. With that decision made, T’Challa strode out of the room to get it done. He could then turn his mind to the rest of what the Ambassador had said.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rogues are sent scurrying out of the protection of Wakanda and Tony makes his first move in the game. Pity the Rogue don't know what game they're all playing.

“Welp, they’re on the move.”

Rhodey looked up from the schematics for the leg braces that Tony had designed and had shoved in his direction that morning. Tony had insisted on leaving the hospital the morning after they’d spoken and the doctors had not really had a leg to stand on to keep him there. With his new nanotech-controlled Extremis, Tony was healthier than he’d been in many years. Rhodey had insisted on going with him. That had involved a few more arguments but finally the doctors had conceded, as long as Rhodey wore a back brace. Not that they expected his back to magically heal itself but they didn’t want him doing more damage. Tony had offered his version of Extremis but Rhodey wasn’t sure. He wanted to think about it long and hard before he said anything and maybe make a few more alterations.

“So it worked,” he said thoughtfully.

Tony pouted at him and he worked hard to swallow a grin. That expression had been much more effective when Tony had been 14, small and scrawny with a pair of unfairly big, brown eyes. Mind you, it still worked pretty well now but little waif Tony had done it better.

“Of course it worked,” Tony said, waving his arms around in mock outrage. “It was _my_ plan.”

Rhodey snickered but was distracted from his reply when screens burst to life around the room without Tony having to ask. Rhodey was still getting used to Tony’s new abilities and from what he’d seen of his friend, so was Tony. But he’d also gotten the impression that FRIDAY was doing a lot of coaching and he was so tickled pink over the idea that Tony’s AI got to teach her father and creator that he was less worried and more amused by it all. Besides, this was _Tony_ with these abilities and if there was one thing he trusted, it was that Tony would always try and do the right thing.

But the screens were fair more interesting than any contemplation of Tony’s abilities. They showed various bits of vision of Rogers and his lot. Taken from CCTV cameras, cell phone photos and videos and anything else Tony could tap into. Most of them showed Rogers, Maximoff, Wilson, Barton and Lang moving nervously through a largish city that was quickly identified, either by FRIDAY or Tony, as Beira in Mozambique.

Janice Mackenzie had been happy to help and unlike Rhodey’s other two possible choices, she was actually in on it. She’d wanted to give T’Challa a chance to come clean and turn over Rogers and the others peacefully. Rhodey had thought she was being highly optimistic but given that she was being so accommodating, he’d allowed her to have the chance. The conversation had gone more or less how he’d expected it. The Ambassador had been disappointed but philosophical and had let them know to contact her if they needed to do anything else with Wakanda. Rhodey kept that in mind. She had a rapport with T’Challa now and a reasonably friendly one. That could be very useful, depending on how things went.

“Clever of T’Challa,” Tony said absently, drawing him out of his thoughts. “Beira is a port city as well a major trade point and also has a train terminal and an airport. Big enough and busy enough that they can feasibly stay under the radar until they can leave and small enough that no one will expect them to be there. Mozambique’s not really an English speaking country but according to his SHIELD file, Barton speaks Portugese so they’ll be able to get by.”

“T’Challa dropped them off?” Rhodey asked

Tony nodded. “Him or his people.” One of the screens split off to show the shadowy vision of a Wakandan style jet making a discreet landing in the very, very early morning hours just outside the city. The picture was a bit muddy but it was good enough to identify – by body shape at least – the five people who got off. “No one Wakandan got off the jet so I can’t tell you whether he did it personally or not.”

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tony said with a shrug. “If he did it personally then he’s dealing with it himself and most likely, no one else knows that they were there. Or very few know they were there. If it was someone else then the question arises as to whether it was his decision and he just delegated or whether someone else in his country took some unilateral action. Either way, more people will know and that… well, the consequences are unknown at the moment. We’ll have to keep an eye on things.”

Rhodey nodded. “Romanov’s not with them?”

“Not for lack of trying,” Tony said with a chuckle. A couple of new screens sprang up that showed Romanov to still be in Europe, specifically in or passing through Istanbul. She looked frustrated and a bit ragged.

“What are you doing to her?” Rhodey asked with amusement.

“Making her life difficult,” Tony replied smugly. “Her tickets keep getting cancelled or altered and the last time she tried to withdraw cash, the machine ate her card. This was the end of her third attempt to get to Istanbul. She finally resorted to stealing a car and then walking after I logged the car as stolen with the local police.”

Rhodey snickered. “You haven’t had them pick her up.”

“I thought about it but I was worried she’d get violent,” Tony said with a grimace. “So I decided to wait on it. It’s easy enough to track her and keep an eye on her until we have a better idea of what to do with her. She’s a bit of a special case since she actually signed the Accords.”

“When is that being decided?”

“Next week,” Tony said. “The Council is giving me a bit of time but next week, we get back into it in full. Amendments, setting things up for the future, the whole lot.”

“What about Ross?” Rhodey asked.

“Oh, Ross is going down,” Tony replied. The other screens were swept to one side and a new series of screens popped up in front of Rhodey. “The first of it should hit today, just in time for the press to publish it tomorrow before Ross can pull any strings to stop them.”

Rhodey read through the information on the screens and chuckled. “Going right for the jugular, I see.”

“Yep,” Tony said with a smirk. “I don’t want him interfering next week so I’m going to cut his legs out from under him now. He’s going to be too busy trying to stay afloat to care about what I’m doing.”

Rhodey nodded absently then he frowned. “Where did you _get_ this stuff? This is magma.”

“Bruce,” Tony said with a complicated note in his voice. “He told me about it a while back.”

Rhodey grimaced and refrained from saying anything. He’d heard about Bruce’s little ‘not that kind of doctor’ line and he wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive the man for that or for subsequently running out on Tony after the Ultron mess. Yeah, sure, he’d made his own mistakes with Tony but he’d always come back and made amends. Or as much amends as Tony would let him, the self-sacrificing idiot. Bruce… well, he was pretty sure not even Tony knew where Bruce was.

“Bruce had all of this,” he said in a neutral tone.

“Not precisely but he pointed me in the direction of the person who did,” Tony replied. “She was more than willing to hand it over and to testify against him.” He snorted. “Should be interesting considering she’s his daughter.”

Rhodey’s eyebrows went up but he was distracted from his reply by the screens featuring Rogers and his gang suddenly coming back to the fore. 

“Looks like they’ve made a decision,” Tony said, watching them with a sort of clinical calm that Rhodey approved of.

“Airport,” he said with a nod. “Figures. They’d want to get somewhere safer, where they can blend in, fast. How do we split them up?”

Tony was silent for a moment but when Rhodey looked over at him, the blue flickering in his eyes told him Tony was hard at work. “There,” he said after a moment. He turned and grinned at Rhodey. “No matter what flights they want to get on, there are not enough seats for all of them. If they want to leave today, they’ll have to split up.” His grin widened. “Don’t fret, honeybear. I paid for the seats. The airlines won’t be out of pocket. They’ll just have a bunch of passengers who don’t turn up. The flight attendants will love it.”

Rhodey chuckled. “I’ll bet. What if they decide to wait until tomorrow?”

“They won’t,” Tony replied. 

He gestured towards the screens. Rhodey watched as Rogers and the others suddenly hunched their shoulders and started looking even more nervous. All except for Lang. He was nervous, sure, but his body language didn’t change. Rhodey frowned at that then remembered that Lang was the one who had been to prison. He’d probably learned how to not draw attention to himself.

“You alerted the police?”

“Yep,” Tony replied. He then snorted. “Figured.”

“What?”

“Barton must have gotten them fake IDs.” 

Tony frowned a little then images began flashing faster than Rhodey could follow them on another screen. When they slowed down, he saw Barton disappearing into a fairly dubious looking building in an equally dubious looking part of the city. The picture was grainy and he realised it was part of a video someone had taken on their cell phone and Barton had been captured in the background. There were no other images or videos of Barton leaving or of any of the others if they were in the vicinity.

“Huh. Barton must have been here before,” Tony mused. “He knew precisely where to go.”

“Where did they get the money?” Rhodey asked. “Fake IDs that’ll stand up to scrutiny aren’t cheap.”

“T’Challa probably,” Tony said dismissively. “I’d imagine he was quite eager to get them out of his country once they decided they weren’t going to stay and gave them some money as a fare-thee-well and get the hell out of my sight present.”

Rhodey realised something about the group who were now at the ticket counter and clearly receiving the news about the lack of seats. “Where’s Barnes?”

Tony shifted his feet where he was standing. “I’m looking into that. I’m guessing still in Wakanda but I have to move very carefully trying to infiltrate their systems. I don’t want them to notice and their tech is… interesting.”

“Better?”

Tony nodded. “In some ways. Interesting in other ways though too. I’m pretty sure some of this code is mine. Old stuff but mine nonetheless.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I think they’ve been reverse engineering my tech.” Tony snorted but his eyes were still distant and flickering between brown and blue as he worked. “I think they’ve been reverse engineering a lot of tech. That’s going to go down like a lead balloon if it ever gets out.”

“Pepper will hit the roof,” Rhodye said idly.

Tony flashed him a brief grin then turned back to the screens. “Ha! They’ve split up. Heading for Europe so they’ve been in contact with Romanov somehow. Rogers, Maximoff and Barton are heading to Sofia and Wilson and Lang are heading to Ankara. Istanbul is about equidistant from both. More or less. So I’m guessing that’s their final destination. Nat must have decided to stay put after all her troubles.”

“Who do we go after first? Wilson and Lang?”

“Yep,” Tony replied. “They’re minnows in the grand scheme of things but when they don’t turn up, that’ll make the rest of them nervous.”

“What do you want to tell the Turkish government and the Council?”

Tony considered that for a moment. “Contact them all quietly. Tell them we have a lead on a couple of the rogues and want permission to head to Turkey and bring them in quietly. Emphasise that we want to do this strictly on a need to know basis so we don’t spook the others into a repeat of Bucharest and that we’ll bring them back to the US where we have a secure holding facility.”

Rhodey frowned. “We do?” Blueprints bloomed to life in front of him revealing a sub-basement of the Compound which had a series of holding cells which, if Rhodey was reading this right, were rated to hold the Hulk. They’d certainly hold Wilson and Lang. “Huh. Did you ever tell them about this?”

“I tried,” Tony replied. “They didn’t listen.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Well, Nat might have listened but the others didn’t. They didn’t listen to much of what I said to them.”

“Too bad for them,” Rhodey said with a shrug. “I’ll start making phone calls.”

“I’ll keep an eye on our runaways and keep tracing Barnes,” Tony said, coming back to himself a bit more. “Thanks, care bear.”

Tony met his eyes and Rhodey knew he was talking about more than just making these kinds of phone calls. He hadn’t questioned Tony’s plan even once, neither had Pepper or Happy for that matter, and that was one of many things Tony was grateful for. He didn’t reply, knowing there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t make Tony uncomfortable. Instead, he nodded and smiled and picked up his phone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Scott start to catch a clue but, you know the old saying - too little, too late? Yeah. That.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be a little more anti-climactic than you were expecting but let's face it, without their gear, Sam and Scott are just ordinary guys. 
> 
> Wait! Where's their gear I hear you ask? 
> 
> Read on and find out. :D

Sam was tired. Tired and confused and starting to feel like he’d made some very bad decisions. When T’Challa had come into the section of the palace they’d been living in and imperiously told them they had a choice – they could either abide by the new restrictions he had for them and stay or he would assist them in leaving but they would not be able to return – Sam had been startled then worried, especially when T’Challa looked annoyed and exasperated at Steve’s protests and assurances. 

In the end, they’d chosen to leave after Wanda had nearly pitched a fit about being confined and Sam felt like that was another of his bad decisions. Especially since they hadn’t been able to take their gear. T’Challa had refused to allow them to take it and that had caused another argument until the Dora Milaje had almost seemed to materialise around them and T’Challa had made it clear that if they kept pushing it, they wouldn’t be removed politely and with at least some assistance, they would be kicked out and left to their own devices, never to return to or be able to contact anyone in Wakanda. When Steve had realised that meant he would not be able to stay in touch regarding Bucky, he’d subsided and agreed. It had left a sour taste in Sam’s mouth but then they’d been too busy to really dwell on it.

Still, he hadn’t been upset when they’d had to split up and he and Scott had been designated to fly together to Ankara. He’d much rather travel with Scott then with Clint and Wanda. Both of them were far too volatile right now for his liking. Scott was clearly preoccupied and lost in thought most of the time but when he was _there_ , he was a calm and surprisingly savvy companion, if sometimes a little goofy.

“You okay, Tic-Tac?” he asked, giving Scott a small nudge. They were waiting for their plane to start boarding. The plane Steve, Clint and Wanda were on had left an hour earlier.

Scott shrugged. “You ever feel like you might not have made the best decision?”

“Yeah,” Sam said heavily.

“I mean, you heard what T’Challa said,” Scott said a little more confidently, apparently bolstered by Sam’s response. “Do you think maybe we should have been watching the news a bit more instead of just sitting around watching movies?”

Sam could help but agree and he pulled out the phones Clint had gotten for them. They weren’t fancy but they had an internet connection. “Maybe we should start looking now?”

Scott nodded and they leaned over Sam’s phone as he navigated from news site to news site and then to various bits of social media and a few forums. It wasn’t pretty.

“I thought Steve said Stark was fine,” Scott finally said. 

“He did.”

“Stark was apparently in hospital for over two weeks,” Scott argued. “That doesn’t sound fine to me.” He grimaced. “And that press release Stark Industries put out when he was in hospital scares the crap out of me.”

Sam frowned and navigated back to the press release in question. He read it again then looked over at Scott. “I don’t think I’m seeing what you are. What do you mean?”

“I used to listen to Hope put together press releases for Pym Tech,” Scott said. “So I kind of picked up how they word things. That…” He pointed at Sam’s phone. “Is way too bland for the subject matter. Hope always said that the worse the issue is, the more bland and benign the press release will be. Sort of a ‘move along, nothing to see here’ kind of thing when there’s actually a _lot_ to see if you look behind the curtain.”

Sam gave Scott a slightly startled look. “What are you saying?”

“That whatever caused Stark to be in hospital for two weeks was way more serious than Stark Industries wants to admit,” Scott replied.

“But he’s out of hospital now,” Sam said, feeling like he was sounding a bit stupid but unable to stop himself.

“Dude, it’s not about the fact he got _out_ of hospital,” Scott replied. “It’s the fact he was in there for _two weeks_. Hospitals like to ‘treat and street’ as they say and yeah, sure, a billionaire is going to get special treatment but… _two weeks_ , Sam. That’s a long time to be in hospital for someone who was apparently _fine_ , according to Captain America.”

“Are you saying Steve was lying?” Sam said, troubled more than he really wanted to be.

“I’m saying Barnes got his arm blown off and Steve didn’t have his shield,” Scott replied. “And if they were the winners of that fight, how do you think Stark, a squishy, ordinary human just like you and me, came out of it?”

Sam opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again as that thought sank in. A shiver ran down his spine and he really thought about it for the first time. That was also when he realised that when he’d asked about what had happened back when they’d first arrived in Wakanda, Steve had looked… shifty. He’d glanced to the side with a guilty expression on his face before he’d straightened and slapped a righteous look on his face and told them Tony was fine.

But Scott was right. If Stark was fine, why had he been in hospital for two weeks? Why had Stark Industries made a ‘nothing to see here’ press release? 

“So… what’s your point?” he finally asked, low and worried.

“My point is… what if we made the wrong decision?” Scott replied. “I mean… I haven’t even figured out what this was all about. Half the time everyone says it’s about these Accords but no one can actually tell me what’s _in_ the Accords. The other half of the time it’s apparently all about Stark but he just seemed to want us all to stop and talk things out like grownups. And every time I come even remotely close to talking about the subject with Steve, all _he_ talks about is _Bucky_.”

Sam frowned and realised Scott was… actually kind of right. “And?”

“And…” Scot hesitated and licked his lips. “Sam, was everything that happened, all the people who got hurt or died, all the damage we did… was all of it because Steve wanted to protect Bucky? Not because of the Accords or anything like that but because Steve cared only about Bucky? I mean… he abandoned all of us pretty quickly at the airport.”

“Because he had to get to the Winter Soldiers to stop them.”

“With only Bucky as his back up?” Scott pressed. “A man who could be easily triggered to become a Winter Soldier. I mean, I know Steve is a good fighter but could he really take on five or six Winter Soldiers on his own?”

Sam hesitated, remembering how Steve had refused to fight Bucky back in DC when he was in full Winter Soldier mode and the absolute beating he’d taken. “No,” he said slowly. “He couldn’t. I don’t think even he and Bucky fighting together could have defeated five Winter Soldiers.”

“So why didn’t he grab one or two of us as well?” Scott asked.

“He didn’t have time,” Sam replied. “And he did come and get us out.”

“Which he didn’t have to do,” Scott replied. “We hadn’t even been held for twenty-four hours, let alone the maximum forty-eight. They were perfectly entitled to lock us up until they’d sorted out whether they were going to charge us or not.”

“What?” Sam said, frowning now. “Why would they charge us?”

He was surprised when Scott gave him a look like he thought he was being stupid.

“Because we broke the law,” Scott said slowly. “It doesn’t matter if we thought we were doing it for the common good, we still broke the law. It’s the same as what I did with VistaCorp. Yeah, I did the right thing and it meant that the whole mess was uncovered but I still broke the law and went to prison for it.”

“But… we’re Avengers,” Sam said weakly.

“So?” Scott said with a frown. “That doesn’t mean we’re above the law. You know all your missions were cleared with the countries you went into. That’s what half the fuss about the Lagos screw up was about – Nigeria didn’t know you were there.”

Sam blinked and shook his head, confused at the turn of the conversation. “I don’t… what?”

Scott leaned in a bit closer. “There was a sound bite from a press conference just after that happened from someone called Maria Hill? I think that was her name. She was pretty good. She managed to avoid the tricky questions but it was pretty obvious she had no idea why you were in Lagos and from the way they described the Avengers structure in the papers, she should have.”

“I… yes,” Sam said weakly. 

Maria had always given them their assignments before Lagos and he’d never questioned why she hadn’t given them this one. But then again, prior to Lagos, Steve or Natasha… well, mostly Natasha… had always come up with a plausible reason for them to go wherever it was they wanted to go. Mostly HYDRA based reasons, which Maria had then translated into official mission. Of course, they’d pretty much all been about finding Bucky but they’d also all been mostly in Europe and South America. This was the first one they’d gone to in Africa and he'd supposed it made sense that HYDRA, the neo-Nazi group, weren’t big operators in Africa. It would have been hard to come up with a reason for them to go there that wasn’t outright about Bucky.

Which lead to the next thought, which had persisted on and off for a while now – why were they being so secretive about hunting for Bucky? It had never made much sense but both Steve and Natasha had been adamant that it had to be kept secret. Specifically, that Stark, Rhodes and Vision should never be told about it. He’d never questioned it before but he sure was now.

“I don’t…” He sighed. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Neither do I,” Scott admitted. “All I do know is that I think following Steve is a really bad idea. Hell, leaving Wakanda was a really bad idea.”

“Yeah,” Sam said heavily. “So… got any ideas?”

“Maybe,” Scott said slowly. “Like… we go to Ankara and when we get there, we call Hope.”

“She’d help us?”

“I think she’s better suited to knowing what the right thing to do is than me,” Scott said ruefully.

Sam stared down at the floor as he thought. It wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe an outside opinion would be useful and Hope Van Dyne was definitely an outside opinion. And given what Scott had said about her father’s opinions, they could be pretty sure she wouldn’t be working with Stark.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, nodding slowly. “Let’s do that.”

The conversation came to a halt then when the boarding call for their flight was announced. They got up and trooped onto the plane, settling into their seats towards the back. Sam noticed that despite their difficulty in getting tickets the plane only seemed to be about two thirds full but he shook his head and shrugged. From what little he understood about airline travel, these things happened. There were probably just a lot of no-shows or the tickets had been held for some purpose that hadn’t come to fruition.

It did make things a bit easier. The flight attendants were more relaxed and he and Scott were able to move further back to have more empty seats around them, which made them both feel a little more comfortable after the announcement that had come over the PA at the airport. How the police had gotten wind of the fact they were in the area he didn’t know but it had scared the lot of them. Sam suspected Clint hadn’t been careful enough when he’d gone to get them false IDs. He hated to think badly of Clint but the man was angry and reckless at the moment and he could easily have given them away. Still, they hadn’t been recognised and their IDs had worked.

The in-flight entertainment wasn’t great but it was enough to pass the time – and keep their minds off their doubts and worries – and sooner than Sam expected, they were landing in Ankara. They joined the end of the queues to get off the plane and did the slow procession through custom and immigration. He was relieved when their false passports passed without any scrutiny and finally he and Scott were standing outside the airport.

“Head into the city and then call?” he suggested. “We can find a hotel near the train station so we can sort out that as well.”

Scott nodded and they quickly hailed a taxi. They both spent their time during the trip into the city, looking out the windows at the sights of the city. It was a pretty amazing place and Sam felt a little disappointed that they weren’t going to be able to do any sight-seeing. Once they were settled into their room, Scott pulled out the phone he’d been given and started making a phone call. He sat down on one of the beds as he rang and Sam sat opposite him on the other bed to listen.

“Hey, Hope,” Scott said with the sort of bright innocence that said he was expecting to be in trouble.

“Scott,” came the thin, flat reply. “In a few seconds, there’s going to be a knock on the door. If you want to actually have a chance to see your daughter again, you will open the door and surrender to those outside your room.”

Scott paled and swallowed hard. “Um… Hope?”

“You heard me.”

She hung up and Scott turned to Sam. “They’ve found us.”

There was a knock at the door and both men leapt to their feet. They glanced at each other and then at the door. The knock came again and then both turned towards the window. As they did, a figure in grey armour rose into view and a familiar shoulder-mounted gun was pointed right at them. As they turned again, Vision phased through the door and gave them a long, unfriendly look.

“Please get down on your knees and place your hands behind your head,” the synthezoid said flatly.

Sam wanted to fight, to argue, to do anything but as he contemplated what he could do, the door burst open and a dozen members of what must be the Turkish police flooded into the room. There was nothing they could do, not without their gear, and after exchanging one last glance with Scott, Sam slowly sank to his knees and laced his hands together behind his head. Once Scott had done the same thing, the police came forward and handcuffed them then read them their rights.

Vision came to stand in front of them and his expression was severe and inscrutable. He said nothing to them, though he spoke to the police in Turkish easily enough. After a few minutes, Colonel Rhodes walked into the room with Tony Stark at his side. Sam paled and flinched at the sight of Rhodes but he couldn’t help but notice the braces that encased man’s legs and how he was walking unaided other than those braces.

Scott’s sudden indrawn breath drew his attention away from Rhodes and he looked over at the other man. Scott, however, was staring at Stark, his eyes wide and shocked. Sam looked over at Stark and he also drew in a shocked breath. Because while he hadn’t met Stark more than a handful of times before the mess in Europe, he knew that the man’s eyes were _not_ normally that intense, bright, inhuman blue. A shiver went down his spine and all the doubts about what Steve had told them about what happened in Siberia compared to the fact that Stark had apparently needed to spend two weeks in hospital came rushing back to the front of his mind.

As he watched, the blue faded until there were only pinpricks of the colour visible in the normal warm brown. That was also when he became aware of the arc reactor glowing that same intense blue in the middle of Stark’s chest. Not the armour, which he was used to, but Stark’s actual chest. That was the moment when Sam’s world crumbled around him. He didn’t know what had happened in Siberia but what he did know was that Steve had lied when he’d said that Stark was fine. Stark had not been fine when Steve left, that was obvious from those eyes and the arc reactor. And _Sam_ was the one who’d insisted on Stark going there alone. ‘As a friend’, he’d said in a pathetic power play because he was feeling angry. He was the one who’d sent an ordinary, baseline human just like he was into something that had resulted in… in whatever had happened. Something bad. Something that had undoubtedly happened at the hands of one, maybe two, super soldiers.

“Sam!”

Sam blinked and realised he was sitting on the edge of the bed and at some point the handcuffs had been removed from both his hands and Scott’s. He didn’t remember any of that but Scott was crouched in front of him, looking worried and a little panicked. “Yeah?” he said hoarsely.

“You okay?” Scott asked.

Sam looked up at Stark and Rhodes. At the flickers of blue in Stark’s eyes and the arc reactor in his chest. At the braces encasing Rhodes’ legs, clearly what was allowing the paralysed man to walk again. He looked at these two men who had been _broken_ because of _him_ , _his_ actions, _his_ choices, _his_ decisions.

He swallowed and shook his head. “No, Tic-Tac, I’m really not.” He licked his lips and made a decision. He raised his head and looked over at Stark and Rhodes again. “Steve and the others are headed to Sofia. They left about an hour before we did.”

He saw Scott shift and sit next to him on the bed but he ignored that in favour of keeping his gaze on Stark and Rhodes. They didn’t seem surprised by what he said and his heart fell. Of course they knew where Steve and the others were heading. They’d obviously known where he and Scott were going.

“Yeah, we know,” Rhodes said, his expression much less sympathetic than Stark’s and Sam wanted to cringe. “Just as we knew you were in Beira, we knew Barton got you all false IDs and that before that you were in Wakanda. Just how dumb do you think we are?”

Sam slumped and bowed his head. He raised his head again in time to see Stark’s eyes turn blue again then the man turned to Rhodes.

“We’re clear to get these two clowns out of here and back to the US,” he said calmly. “Though we’re going to have to fields calls from the Romanian President and the German Chancellor later.”

Rhodes grimaced. “Yeah, okay. I thought we had agreement from them?”

“We do,” Stark replied, surprising Sam by looking ruefully amused. “My guess is they just want to firmly reiterate that they’re playing along and get reassurances that we won’t be getting soft for old time’s sake or whatever.”

Rhodes rolled his eyes. “Oh, _that_ kind of phone call.”

Stark chuckled then said something to the guy who looked like the senior police officer. The man nodded and gestured to two of his subordinates. In short order, both Sam and Scott were handcuffed again and then they were lead out of the hotel and down the back stairs. They emerged into a back street and were ushered into a police car. Stark had another conversation with the police and there was a round of handshakes and smiles and nods among all of them

Then, as Sam watched, Rhodes’ armour swooped down and encased him but it was Stark’s armour that had his jaw hanging open. Instead of flying in like Rhodes’ armour, Stark’s suit seemed to _crawl_ out of not only the arc reactor but also Stark’s _skin_ , and formed around him smoothly and seamlessly. As the helmet started to formed Stark glanced over at them and just as the face plate formed, Stark smirked. Sam watched in stunned surprise as the two men took off and then the car started moving. 

“What now?” Scott asked softly.

“I think we do what we’re told,” Sam said with a sigh and a shake of his head. “I don’t think we have any other choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To answer some questions I can already hear...
> 
> No, T'Challa wasn't really thinking things through when he demanded to keep the Falcon wings and the Ant-Man suit. He's caught in a reactive situation instead of trying to be proactive and he's hasn't quite thought through the fact that he can't really hand them over without admitting the Rogues were there and he's already lied about that. Or at least avoided talking about it.
> 
> No, the suit didn't really crawl out of Tony's skin. That was Sam just being overwhelmed and missing a few things. Tony hasn't gone full Extremis Bleeding Edge armour here. (Yet. I make no guarantees about what happens in the future.) It's more along the lines of what you see in Infinity War, with the nanotech for the suit stored in the arc reactor housing.
> 
> And yes, Scott is definitely in the 'what the hell have we done?' camp before they even get on the plane, probably even before they left Wakanda. Sam was still floating down that river in Egypt until he saw the tangible physical effects of what happened to Rhodey and Tony. Then he couldn't play denial any more.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuri gets an email she wasn't expecting and has a conversation she wasn't expecting. Said conversation has an outcome she _definitely_ wasn't expecting.

Shuri had been sulking. She knew it and she also knew it was a bit silly but after the disaster of her trip to the UN, she’d just wanted to hide and sulk and lick her metaphorical wounds. She wasn’t so self-absorbed as to not realise that she’d been sheltered and spoiled in Wakanda but she’d never had it so bluntly pointed out to her as when she’d met the scientists. She’d consider them rude but… well, they _had_ been rude but they’d also been truthful and as many people before, she was learning that the truth could sometimes be painful.

She sighed and poked at the schematics for the Black Panther suit in a rather desultory manner. She was annoying her mother too. Ramonda’s faint air of disapproval was becoming more and more pronounced until it could hardly be called _faint_ anymore and she wasn’t the only one at the receiving end of those looks. After her return from Europe, Ramonda had gotten the truth out of both of them about everything that had happened since T’Chaka’s death. To say she was displeased would be an understatement. Certainly she was displeased enough that she’d returned to the family home for a period of time to gather herself. She’d told them she would have words for both of them when she returned.

A low ping from her computer drew her attention away from both the schematics and her thoughts and she glanced over to see an email from an unknown source in her inbox. She frowned and wheeled her chair over to that part of the bench. She hadn’t seen that wrong. There was an email with no sender address. She frowned and ran it through some of her security programs as a precaution before opening it.

_Your Highness,_

_FRIDAY tells me that’s the proper form of address for a princess so we’ll go with it. I’m Tony Stark and according to my tracking program, some of my tech is in your country. Now, based on what Wilson and Lang have to say, you weren’t the one making some very bad decisions on the part of your country so I thought I’d give you a bit of a heads up._

_Also, I’m sorry for what happened with the science brain fest. If you ever want to talk science, feel free to give me a call. My number’s at the bottom of this email. We should probably talk about what happened there anyway because Wakanda is facing some problems on the scientific front that you might want to get ahead of._

_Tony Stark._

Shuri stared at the email for a long time then she spent a few hours ploughing through the system to find out _how_ Dr Stark had gotten the email to her without much in the way of success. It honestly looked like the email had been generated in her inbox rather than being sent and it was insatiable curiosity that made her call the number in the email, after a brief check to make sure the time difference wasn’t completely rude.

“If you’ve got this number, speak,” came the somewhat distracted response when the call was picked up.

“Dr Stark?” Shuri said, feeling hesitant in a way she rarely had before.

There was the sound of clang and a muffled curse. “Princess Shuri?”

“Yes?”

There were some more muffled noises and then she heard Dr Stark say in the distance, “Dummy, no. Just go pick that stuff up and try not to break anything.” Then he was back. “Sorry about that, Your Highness. I wasn’t expecting your call so soon.”

“Shuri,” she said without really thinking about it. 

“Huh?” came the response then her screen burst to life and Tony Stark appeared on it. He looked to be in his workshop and by his somewhat bedraggled appearance, he’d been there for several hours. There was also a strange robot behind him trying and failing to sweep the floor. Shuri felt the robot might be more successful if the broom was the right way up. 

“How did you do that?” she said with a frown. “Our systems…”

Stark grimaced. “Have a bit of tech in them that I know. Or related to tech I know anyway. Some of your predecessors have been a little… indiscriminate in their usage of propriety tech.”

“Oh,” Shuri said, feeling more than a little off-balance. That was probably why she said what she said next. “Why is your robot holding the broom upside down?”

Stark’s confusion made her giggle a little then he turned around. “Dummy!” he said with exasperation. “You _know_ how to do this.”

The robot beeped and waved the broom before turning it around and going back to work with a flurry of beeps. Shuri could have sworn that sounded… sulky. But then Stark sighed and turned back to her and rolled his eyes.

“He’s in a mood,” he said. He looked aggrieved but he sounded fond.

“You called him Dummy?” she said curiously.

“DUM-E,” Tony replied, spelling it out. He gave a sort of helpless shrug. “I was seventeen and kind of really drunk when he came on line. The word dummy was more directed at myself but he picked it up and ran with it.” He glanced over his shoulder and when he looked back his expression was very fond. “He may not be too bright but he’s _really_ stubborn.”

Shuri giggled. She couldn’t help but be charmed by a man whom she knew she’d have dismissed as a coloniser just a few weeks ago. Maybe being cut off at the knees by the scientists had been good for her. Then she remembered his email and hesitated for a moment.

“Your tech…”

“Is there, yes,” Tony replied. “Wilson and Lang were picked up in Ankara yesterday and we’re currently tracking Rogers, Maximoff and Barton as they travel from Sofia to Istanbul. We also know they were in Wakanda.” He paus and gave her a rueful look. “I’m not sure how up to date your brother keeps you but one of the UN ambassadors called him before he kicked out the rogues. That was his best chance to come clean and avoid the worst of the consequences.”

Shuri sighed. “He didn’t tell me, no.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “How much trouble are we in?”

Tony sighed and waggled his hand a bit. “Hard to tell exactly. Mostly it depends on what happens when we catch the others.”

Shuri noted that he said ‘when’, not ‘if’. “How do you mean?”

“Wilson and Lang are amenable to making a deal, which means that their brief residence in Wakanda doesn’t have to be mentioned,” Tony replied. “Questions will be asked but we’ll be able to avoid them. But the others? They’re not known for their willingness to play ball if it wasn’t their idea in the first place.”

“I noticed,” Shuri said with open disdain. 

“Not your favourite house guests,” Tony said shrewdly. 

“Definitely not. They were rather rude.”

“Tell me about it,” Tony said dryly. He paused. “Where’s Barnes?”

Shuri paused. “Why did you want to know?” she asked carefully. She may not entirely agree with her brother’s decisions but she was willing to honour them for now.

Tony gave her a long look in return then there was another ping from her inbox. “I’ve sent you a couple of videos. These aren’t public knowledge. Yet. I had a little chat with Zemo a couple of days ago and I have reason to believe that those videos will be made public sooner rather than later. He was way too smug not to have had a back-up plan.”

Shuri looked between her email and the video screen. “Should I watch them now?”

“Yeah, probably,” Tony replied. “You should know what this was actually all about. Though… I’m going to mute the sound while you watch them.” He grimaced and shrugged. “I’ve… come to terms with what happened but that doesn’t mean I want to get a replay of it.”

Shuri nodded and waited until the video screen indicated that the sound had been muted on Tony’s side. She then watched the two videos. It was confusing at first before she realised that one of the videos was the one being watched by Tony, Rogers and Barnes in the other video, which was footage from Tony’s suit. After her first viewing, she went back and watched them again, able to comprehend them a bit better the second time around. And with that comprehension came anger. Once she was done, she closed the videos and waved a hand to get Tony’s attention.

“How dare they?” she snapped as soon as the mute symbol disappeared.

Tony just shrugged. “That’s the world according to Steve Rogers. His way or the highway. Or better put – his way or you’re the enemy. You’re lucky he decided to go quietly when your brother kicked them out.”

Shuri nodded slowly, suddenly aware of the bullet that had been dodged. “Why, though? Why would he have gone quietly when we have the only thing that is important to him?”

“What were the terms given to them?” Tony asked.

“Leave quietly and he’d offer them some assistance and ensure that Rogers could remain in touch to keep up with how Sergeant Barnes is,” Shuri replied. “Cause trouble and they’d be kicked out without any assistance and be forbidden from ever returning or being allowed to maintain any contact with anyone here.”

“There’s your answer then,” Tony replied. “Barnes. If you’d denied him access to Barnes point blank without giving him some room to move, you’d have had a fight on your hands.”

Shuri nodded then she gave Tony a troubled look. “I see.” She paused. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

Tony sighed and leaned back in his chair and Shuri’s eyes were drawn to the glowing circle underneath the black tank top he was wearing. She’d seen the Iron Man armour enough times to know what it was and she’d heard the rumours about the aftermath of his kidnapping in Afghanistan. The scientists in Wakanda had speculated that the arc reactor must be embedded in the man’s chest and it seemed that it was true. She thought back to the videos and knew she had her answer about why it was there now.

“There’s no avoiding consequences for Wakanda now,” he said. “T’Challa set you on an irrevocable path the moment he lied to Ambassador McKenzie. That’s in the international diplomatic arena. Then there are the questions that are _already_ being asked by other African countries about why you’ve apparently turned a blind eye to the troubles they’ve had. Also, you remember I mentioned finding my own coding in your systems? Well, I found other familiar code as well and while I haven’t seen much of your tech in the flesh, if there are copies of outside tech and code within them then you’re in a world of trouble over that. The lawsuits will be epic.” He looked at her almost kindly. “I’ll be honest with you. I have no objection to seeing Wakanda come back to the international community. I like the challenge you’re going to provide. I don’t want to see your country forced back into isolation.”

“You think it will be?” Shuri said, feeling a little alarmed.

Tony grimaced. “If you’ll excuse my language, your country is facing a shitstorm and a half. It’s coming and there’s not a lot you can do to avoid it. If he’s very lucky, T’Challa may be able to navigate Wakanda through the storm with minimal damage but he’d need to have enough luck for half a dozen people or more. If he’s unlucky…” He fell silent and looked away.

Shuri knew what he wasn’t saying. If T’Challa couldn’t navigate their way through it, then they faced a crisis of unprecedented proportions. And one of the easiest ways to end the trouble would be for someone to fall on their sword. Someone like T’Challa. Which would leave Shuri as the new candidate for Queen, assuming there was no challenge and that simply _couldn’t_ be ruled out given it would have been their family that brought the trouble on Wakanda.

“I’m only sixteen,” she whispered. For once, she wasn’t proud of that. Now all she could see was her lack of experience.

“I know,” Tony said. “I’m assuming your mother would act as your regent at least for the rest of the world?”

Shuri nodded. “She’s gone back to the family estate but… I could contact her.”

“It might be for the best,” Tony said. “If you can be prepared for the worst case scenario then the transition will be smooth and hopefully mitigate the worst of the damage.”

Shuri nodded. She was aware that what she was contemplating could be called treason but she couldn’t deny the truth in what Tony was saying. She would need to speak to her mother and maybe some of the Dora Milaje. If anyone would know the rights of what she was doing, it would be them.

“You were my age when you took over Stark Industries, weren’t you?”

Tony shook his head. “I was seventeen when my parents died. Legally I couldn’t act as CEO until I was twenty-one. Obadiah Stane stepped in as interim CEO.”

“Like a regent?”

Tony nodded. “More or less.”

“How did you cope?”

“Badly,” Tony said wryly. “I did a lot of very stupid things and might have killed myself if not for Rhodey watching out for my ‘stupid white ass’ as he put it.”

“You’ve known Colonel Rhodes for a long time.”

Tony’s smile became very fond. “Yep. We met at MIT when I was fourteen. I think he took one look at me and decided I was going to get eaten alive if he didn’t look after me.” He chuckled. “He probably wasn’t wrong.”

“Father was talking about sending me to a foreign University before he died,” Shuri said.

“Not a bad idea,” Tony replied. “And something you could still do if you wanted. I don’t know what age you have to be to take power in Wakanda but no one outside is really going to take you seriously until you’re eighteen minimum and twenty one in a lot of other places.”

“Maybe,” Shuri said. “If what you’re saying is right, there’s going to be a lot of trouble here. Emerging from our isolation hasn’t been a universally popular decision. T’Challa faced a challenge to his rule and I…” She grimaced. “I think I would as well.”

“Challenge?” Tony said, cocking his head curiously “What kind of challenge?”

“Trial by combat,” Shuri replied.

She was surprised when Tony blinked and just stared at her for a moment. 

“Trial by what now?” he said with a frown. “Seriously?”

Shuri nodded. “It’s… not common actually. Not these days. Father wasn’t challenged nor was my grandfather. But…”

“There was some unrest about T’Chaka’s decision,” Tony said, nodding in understanding. “And it’d be worse after this trouble.”

Shuri nodded. “I wouldn’t be expected to fight myself since I’m sixteen, though I could if I wanted to. I could also choose a… a champion, I think is the word. But that would be putting someone else at risk.” She sighed. “And… that might be difficult anyway. The Dora Milaje are loyal to the throne and the country. If they believe that our family is no longer the best for the country, they will turn against us.”

“I do not believe that will happen.”

Shuri yelped as Ayo stepped out of the shadows near the door. From the expression on her face, she’d been standing there for some time.

“How much have you heard?” Tony asked, his tone indicating he was more intrigued than anything else.

“From the second time the princess watched the videos,” Ayo replied, coming around to stand beside Shuri.

“And?” Tony said, raising an eyebrow.

“The Dora Milaje are dedicated to what is best for Wakanda,” Ayo replied. “If that means a change in monarch then so be it.”

“So you’ll support Shuri?”

Ayo considered the question. “If we believe she will be a better monarch. I would advise that she seek counsel with her mother. The Queen Mother is wise and knowledgeable.”

Tony nodded. “There are… reasons why I feel reluctant to support King T’Challa. The personal ones being at the bottom of the list. You were lucky that Rogers was willing to accept the king’s terms when he kicked them out. Had he not… well, he has a habit of punching his way out of things.” Tony paused and grimaced. “He also has a… remarkable ability to disregard Maximoff’s use of the more distasteful part of her skillset.”

“Magic is not unknown here,” Ayo said in a neutral tone.

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Vibranium? I only have Dad’s notes from his study of the chunk he eventually turned into the shield but they are interesting.”

“Stolen,” Ayo said with disapproval.

Tony matched her look with a steely one of his own. “Not stolen. Dad bought it from a guy who found it half buried in a Greek beach. There’s photo evidence.” He arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t seriously think that Wakanda was the sole benefactor of a meteor falling to earth, did you?”

“How did you know of its source?” Ayo demanded.

Tony smirked. “I have my own sources. But you didn’t answer my question and if you don’t know the answer then I wonder about the standard of education in Wakanda that you think a meteor lands all on one piece.”

Ayo’s eyes narrowed then she inclined her head. “You may have a point.”

“I do have a point,” Tony said flatly. “And many people who did not appreciate Wakandan agents stealing their legally acquired vibranium.”

Shuri sucked in a breath while Ayo just looked sour. Tony, for his part, looked entirely unrepentant.

“You have spoken to them?” Ayo asked.

“I have,” Tony replied. “I went digging about Dad’s vibranium and then got curious about anyone else who might have found some. They didn’t appreciate being called thieves by people who ultimately turned out to be hypocritical. They didn’t have much recourse until Wakanda revealed itself. Now they’re wondering if they do.”

Ayo’s sour expression returned. “Is that a threat?”

Tony held his hands up. “I have no control over what they do. Or don’t do. Have they asked me for advice about how difficult it would be? Yes. Have I given them that advice. Yes, I have. Why wouldn’t I? What Wakanda does with this advance knowledge is up to Wakanda.”

Ayo went very still then she inclined her head. “What would you do?” she said to Shuri.

Shuri frowned. “It really was legitimately acquired?” she asked Tony.

He nodded. “Refresh yourself on what happens to a meteor when it hits atmosphere. Chunks of varying sizes hit over a pretty large geographical area. Sure, the bulk of it landed in Wakanda – and congrats on surviving what must have been a catastrophic event – but there were bits and pieces spread all over Africa and up into the Middle East. A lot landed in the ocean as well.”

His innocent expression at that statement told them exactly what he must be doing right now but neither argued about it.

“It was definitely stolen?” Shuri asked instead.

“Yep.”

Shuri chewed on her bottom lip for a moment and thought back to the accusations that had been thrown at her by the scientists. Accusations that had a fair basis in fact.

“Offer them monetary compensation,” she said. “If they refuse then we negotiate.”

She looked at the screen and saw Tony looking at her with a hint of disappointment. “Stolen property,” was all he said.

“But…” she began before falling silent with a frown.

Tony leaned forward. “Shuri, perhaps answering another question might help you with this – why did your father choose _now_ to end Wakanda’s isolation? An isolation that really wasn’t hurting you and had the potential to cause trouble, both internally and externally.”

Shuri blinked. “I… don’t know.”

“Perhaps that’s something you should find out,” he said, leaning back in his chair again.

Shuri looked over at Ayo. “Do you know?”

Ayo shook her head. “No, King T’Chaka did not choose to confide in the Dora Milaje about his reasons.” She paused. “Or not his true reasons. He told us it was time and that it would be the best thing for Wakanda but we were aware that he did have another reason.”

“Would Mother know?”

Ayo inclined her head. “I believe she does.”

Shuri nodded slowly. “I think I need to speak to Mother then. About this and a lot of things.” She turned to Tony. “Can I call you back?”

“Of course,” he said. “And not just about this. The scientists you met might have got their backs up but I’m always happy to talk science with anyone.”

Shuri smiled wanly. “I might take you up on that.”

Tony gave her a friendly wave then signed off. The moment the screen went black Shuri turned to face Ayo properly. “Do you think he can be trusted?”

“I think he has his own agenda but that it is not incompatible with Wakanda’s best interests,” Ayo replied. “I believe he was speaking the truth when he said he does not want to see Wakanda return to isolation.”

Shuri nodded then got to her feet. “Would you escort me to see my mother?”

Ayo bowed. “I would be honoured, Your Highness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Tony has done a lot more poking around in Wakanda's system than he's admitting to. And yes, he's meddling (very gently) in Wakanda's politics. He probably won't do more than he has here though. He has other fish to fry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan for the remaining rogues unfolds... and then develops a slight curve.

Tony was monitoring Rogers, Barton and Maximoff on CCTV and via the GPS in their car as they drove into the outskirts of Istanbul. They’d obtained said car – a rental – after arriving in Sofia, mostly at Barton’s urging if the video he’d seen from the airport was anything to go by. Tony had to give Barton some credit. He seemed to realise that they were in some sort of trouble and was trying to get the others to lay low and avoid places where the police might expect them to be. It seemed to be working so far, which was lucky for them. If Maximoff had started using her mind-raping abilities against civilians, Tony would have thrown aside his plans and taken them all down hard. The only reason he hadn’t done that so far was because he wanted to minimise civilian casualties.

“Is that Istanbul?”

Tony glanced over his shoulder and nodded to Hope, who had just walked into the workshop. Tony had emailed her once the rogues were on the move and warned her that Lang would possibly be contacting her shortly. It had been a courtesy email and something of a test, to see what she would do, to see how much of her father’s idiocy she had absorbed. She had proven to be a better person than her father when she’d called him within ten minutes of him sending the email. Tony had found her eminently sensible and intelligent and had invited her over to the Compound almost immediately. She was none too pleased that T’Challa still had the Ant-Man suit but Tony had convinced her to hold off on any contact regarding that. When she’d realised that he was offering T’Challa some rope and seeing what he would do with it, she agreed to wait and see what happened, even she did confide in him that her father was frothing at the mouth about the Wakandans having his tech.

“Yep,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “They’ve just arrived.”

“Is it really wise to let them join up with Romanov?” Hope asked, coming around and sitting on a stool opposite Tony.

“Yes and no,” he said. “Having them all together makes it easier to make plans but you’re right, having them all together raises the stakes when it comes to capturing them. But I’ve thought of that.”

“Oh?” Hope said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the video feed. Tony hadn’t told her about the updates Extremis had given him but he knew she was starting to get suspicious. He was waiting to see what she would do. Maybe he was being unfair to her given how accommodating and helpful she’d been since he’d first contacted her but all the betrayals he’d faced in his life, he wasn’t willing to trust easily now.

“I want to get them out of any cities and towns,” he replied. “I want to get them into unpopulated areas to be precise.”

Hope shook her head slowly. “They’ll be too suspicious for that. They have to know that their only safety comes from having people around them.”

“Barton and Romanov, yes. Rogers and Maximoff, not so much.”

Hope nodded, taking Tony at his word much to his surprise. “Is that how you plan to separate them?”

“Yep.” Tony brought up another screen, this time deliberately not using a hand gesture like he had previously when Hope was around. Pepper had told him he could trust Hope, that she was nothing like her father from not only her own dealing with Pym Tech but also what she’d heard from others in the business, and now he was going to put that to the test. “We’ve been tracking Romanov’s movements and she’s been in contact with one of her old cronies in Istanbul.” He smirked. “Unluckily for her, we got to him first. He’s been feeding us information and in return he’s been giving her the information we give him.”

“What does he get out of all of this?” Hope asked.

“A six hour head start before we inform the authorities about him after we’re done,” Tony replied dryly. “He was remarkably pragmatic about that.”

“The authorities won’t be happy,” Hope replied.

“ _Well_ ,” Tony drawled. “To be completely truthful, our deal was that we’d give him a six hour head start from the Istanbul _police_. We didn’t say anything about anyone else and he didn’t mention anyone else. Apparently he’s also wanted by the Turkish Jandarma, or gendarmerie, on terrorism charges so while we’ll honour our deal and give him six hours before we contact the police, we’ll phone in the tip immediately to the Jandarma.”

Hope chuckled. “Nice. Though I’d imagine he won’t be too happy about that.”

Tony shrugged. “Not our fault he doesn’t pay attention to the details. You can certainly tell he’s never done business with the big boys and girls before.”

Hope outright laughed at that and they shared a look that said everything about their feelings regarding business, boards, contracts and the general perfidy involved in anything to do with any of those things.

“So you’re planning on splitting them up into two groups,” Hope said. “How?”

“I have a few plans but…” Tony raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s your father’s opinion on all of this?”

“Seriously conflicted,” Hope said, wry amusement written all over her face. “On one hand, he hates siding with a Stark.” They both rolled their eyes at that. “But on the other hand, he’s livid that Scott left the Ant-Man suit in Wakanda and T’Challa hasn’t returned it. He’s also not too pleased with Rogers. He says the man can’t act like the law doesn’t apply to him.”

Tony snorted. “Pot, kettle, black. The shenanigans here at the Compound a while back says otherwise.”

“I know,” Hope said with a sigh and a shake of her head. “I’ve pointed that out him but he’s shameless. _It was Stark_ , he says. I’m _so_ sorry.”

Tony waved a hand. “To be honest, I’m basically just amused these days. I’ve never actually met your father or know who he is beyond being the founder of Pym Tech. So his one-sided grudge is a bit wasted on me. Now Pepper on the other hand? Pepper still wants her pound of flesh on SI’s behalf.”

Hope winced. “I’ll tell him that. He respects her and we both know what happens when you piss off Virginia Potts.”

Tony gave a lop-sided smile. Things with Pepper were… not going smoothly. She felt guilty about using Extremis on him but conversely also wasn’t entirely comfortable with what it had done to him. Neither was he for that matter but pragmatism had won out on that score. He had also finally come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to stop being Iron Man. Not now and not anymore. Maybe if the Avengers had been what he’d wanted them to be, he could have semi-retired except for major events but that hadn’t happened and now he knew that he couldn’t step down. The question was whether Pepper could accept that.

They’d talked about it, just for a change. Really sat down and talked about themselves, their relationship and what they each wanted from it. It had been a somewhat painful conversation but at least they’d been honest and had all their wishes and expectations on the table. They’d also agreed to go to therapy, both individually and as a couple, as soon as they could find a therapist or two that could be trusted. It was a step in the right direction and he was truly hoping that they could save their relationship. He was aware that it might not, that therapy might simply reveal that their aims and goals were just too incompatible. If that was the case, he wanted to make sure he preserved their friendship.

“Why do you think I made her CEO?” he said.

“You weren’t a bad CEO,” Hope said with a frown. “You’re the one who made SI what it is.”

“I know but I hated the job. Hated the bureaucracy, the paperwork, the meetings, the ass-kissing, all of it. I don’t have the patience for that. I can do it if I have to but I hated every minute of it.” He shrugged. “Pepper has the patience and personality to not only endure it but actually find it enjoyable.”

Hope grinned. “That’s because she’s like me – she enjoys cutting sexist old dinosaurs off at the knees while looking pretty and wearing a nice skirt.”

Tony laughed. “Exactly. So I gave her that job and kept the jobs I do actually like – CTO and Head of R&D. There’s still too much in the way of paperwork but at least with those jobs, I get to play with my researchers and see what they’re doing.”

“Nice,” Hope said then she raised an eyebrow. “Now what’s this about my father?”

“Think he’d be willing to play bad guy for us?”

Hope blinked and stared at him for a moment. “You mean, pretend he’s willing to back them?”

Tony nodded. “Romanov would absolutely know how much he hates me, which means she’d be willing to believe it.”

Hope tapped her fingers against the bench as she thought the idea through. “Maybe,” she finally said then she pulled out her phone. “Let me ask him.”

Tony waited while she made the phone call and pulled up the details of what he had tentatively planned. He hadn’t actually thought of using a real person until Hope walked in the door but now that he was, he kind of liked it.

“Dad? It’s Hope. Hi. No, nothing’s wrong. No, I’m fine. No, he’s… _Dad_!” She fell silent and took a deep breath. “Can you just, for _once_ , not be a paranoid asshole?”

Tony smothered a smile but he knew his amusement had to be visible anyway from the way Hope’s eyes narrowed when she looked at him. She then suddenly grinned and poked her tongue out at him.

“Thank you,” she said firmly. “Now, what would you say to being instrumental in bringing in the rogue Avengers?” She paused to listen to the reply and then rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Yes, it is Tony’s plan. And would you like me to start calling you Hank instead of Dad again?”

There was another lengthy silence on Hope’s side and then she nodded. “Fine. Just listen to the plan before you pre-judge it, okay?”

She tapped the phone then put it down on the bench. “Tony?”

“Is that Stark?” Hank grumbled sourly.

“Yes, it is,” Tony said dryly before continuing in a very pointed manner. “Though I usually prefer to be called _Tony_. I am not nor have I _ever_ been my father.”

There was a moment of disgruntled silence at the other end of the phone. “Right. So, what’s this plan?”

“Right now, my asshole former teammates are in Istanbul,” Tony said smoothly. “They’ll be meeting up with Romanov in about fifteen minutes, assuming they don’t get caught up in traffic. Romanov has been meeting with one of the few contacts she has who will still speak to her. He, however, is working for us. Not exactly willingly but he’s behaving because he thinks he’s actually going to get something out of this. The plan is to get him to tell Romanov that he’s heard of someone who might be willing to be their new sugar daddy.”

“I’m assuming this is where I come in,” Hank said dryly.

“Yep,” Tony replied. “We’ll set up a meeting somewhere and see who we draw in. My guess is we’ll get two of the four with that and then we can swoop in and get the other two.”

“What about my gear?”

Hope sighed but Tony actually understood where Hank was coming from with the question. There was a lot of cutting edge propriety tech in the Ant-Man suit and Wakanda had shown themselves to be… somewhat lax when it came to proper etiquette with such things. And if he understood things correctly, Hank was paranoid about people misusing those Pym particles of his. In fact, from everything Hope had said, he was paranoid enough that Tony was convinced something bad had happened in the past, possibly connected to Howard. Or at least in his general vicinity. Howard had his flaws but Tony had never known him to steal tech. Buy it out, sure, but not steal.

“Still in Wakanda and I know you don’t like it but I’d like to keep quiet on that for the moment,” Tony replied. “I’ve spoken to Princess Shuri and planted some seeds there. If T’Challa decides to do something nefarious with our tech, he’ll bring it to Shuri. If that happens, I’m sure she’ll contact me immediately.”

Hank grunted. “Alright. So what do you need me to do?”

“Let us use your name,” Tony replied. “I’m sure Lang hasn’t been shy in sharing your opinion about all things Stark with them and they’d have eaten that up like it was going out of style. Lang won’t be there to egg them on but I’m sure Romanov will fall for it and if she falls for it, the rest won’t question it.”

“You sound like you don’t care about my opinion of you,” Hank said, sounding both grouchy about that and curious at the same time.

“I don’t,” Tony said. “People have been forming opinions about me without actually having ever met me or getting to know me or just based on who my father was or the latest unsubstantiated gossip in the papers since the day I was born. I tend to ignore it or use it depending on what’s more valuable to me.”

“Hmph,” Hank said. “I suppose I deserve that.”

Hope leaned in a little and spoke more directly into the phone. “Yes, Dad, you do.”

“Fine,” Hank grumbled. “Do you want me to pretend to get caught out by the press and make some sort of off the cuff remark to egg them on?”

Tony and Hope exchanged amused glances before Tony spoke, “If you could do it today, sure. That’ll give it time to filter over to Europe and into Romanov’s little ear.”

“I can manage that.” Hank paused. “Why didn’t you ever pursue us about the break in?”

Tony frowned slightly then snorted. “Because you used what you stole to stop Cross. We looked into it and Cross was bad news. We were prepared to let sleeping dogs lie because of that.” He paused momentarily. “Also, it was kind of funny to watch your guy bamboozle and get the better of Wilson.”

Hank snorted but before he could say anything Tony continued, “However, Pepper is still not happy about it. As I said, I talked her into letting sleeping dogs lie but she hasn’t forgotten.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the phone and Tony and Hope exchanged grins.

“Right,” Hank said, sounding both grouchy and a little bit intimidated. “Well, if I’m going to let the press catch me, I’d better get going.”

Hank disconnected and Tony waved a hand to kill the call from his end. 

“That went well,” Hope said with a small frown.

“Is there a problem?” Tony asked.

“No,” Hope said slowly. “It’s just…” She sighed. “I suppose Dad was eventually going to grow up. It’s just strange to see it.”

Tony gave her a long look. “Is he playing us?”

“No!” Hope said with surprise then she frowned and was clearly going over the conversation that had just occurred. “No,” she said again, slower this time. “I don’t think so. I won’t be offended if you monitor him though.”

Tony nodded. “I will. Not because I distrust you but because if he goes off script, I need to catch it fast.”

“That’s fine,” Hope said then she sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Ugh. I hate being suspicious of him but…”

“Yeah,” Tony said wryly. “Once bitten, twice shy.”

Hope nodded and they both turned back to the screens in time to see the car containing Barton, Rogers and Maximoff pull into an underground carpark. There were no cameras in the carpark but it wasn’t long before they were spotted walking into the apartment building where Natasha was staying. There were both cameras and listening devices in the apartment, installed by an Enhanced the local police had produced when Tony had asked if they’d be able to bug the place.

Finding out there were Enhanced in other places had not surprised Tony. In fact, he was pleased and had taken the opportunity to talk to the man about the Accords and, when he’d indicated his acceptance of the Accords, he’d warned him about what he’d seen beyond the portal. He was pleasantly surprised when the man had believed him without question and had promised to pass the news on to the other Enhanced he knew. 

“Natasha,” Rogers said with relief.

“Steve.” Her reply was terse and she looked less than pleased to see them. “Where are Wilson and Lang?”

“On their way,” Steve replied. “We had to split up and take different flights. They went to Ankara. Their flight should have landed not long after ours so they should be here soon.”

Natasha nodded, apparently satisfied by that answer. “I have some good news.”

“Oh?”

“I think I’ve found a new backer.”

They saw the way Steve frowned. “What do you mean? Tony…”

Natasha scoffed. “If you think Tony will still back us after all of this, you’re not thinking straight.”

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Steve protested. “Look, Tony was just misguided. As soon as the Accords fall apart, he’ll see that and…”

Natasha shook her head, silencing him. She gave him a long look and appeared to be trying to decide what to say. “Maybe. In the long run, maybe. But we can’t wait for that, especially if you’re going to set yourself up against the Accords. We need to _prove_ that they’re as bad as you say they are and for that, we need money and equipment.”

Steve frowned then he sighed and nodded. “Okay. So who is this backer?”

Natasha gestured for them to sit down. “Hank Pym.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was quick, wasn’t it? Wait… they couldn’t have done this that quickly, could they? They only just got off the phone with Hank. Has Hank double-crossed them? Or is there someone else playing funny buggers?
> 
> It was all just going far too smoothly. :D


End file.
